Spend an afternoon with an eye care practice's reviews and one thing keeps surfacing. Patients mention the frames and the prices, but the praise that repeats, review after review, is about a person: the doctor who explained every test, who took their time, who didn't push new glasses, who they've seen for decades and would drive across town to keep seeing.
Now look at the ads on the same search page. They talk about discounts, frame counts and insurance. The thing patients value most, and the thing a retail chain can't copy, is missing from almost every ad. This chapter covers how to write Google ads that sell the doctor, where the words should come from, and the rules some states put on how you name yourself.
Patients Keep the Same Eye Doctor for Decades
In the 837 Google reviews we read from our example market, Chicago, praise for the doctor dominated. Thoroughness and explanation came up in 160 reviews, 158 of them positive. The doctor's manner came up in 169, with 159 positive. "Thorough" appeared in 65 reviews and "explain" in 69.
And patients stay. Continuity came up in 61 reviews, usually measured in years or generations. One patient wrote, "I've been going to see her since I was a kid," and added, "Prior to seeing her, her dad was my eye doctor." Another said simply, "Been with them over 30 years." A family traveling to Occhiali wrote, "We actually travel two hours each year just to see him."
Glasses matter too. They came up in 258 reviews, most often as praise for staff who helped patients choose frames. But the frames are what patients buy. The doctor is why they come back. Your own reviews will name different people, and the pattern is worth checking.
The Ads Beside Yours Lead With Offers and Frames
To see what patients get from the ads, we pulled one recent Google Search ad each from 16 advertisers in the example market, using the previews in Google's Ads Transparency Center. Here's what they led with:
- Offers, discounts or insurance: 4, including "Get 50% Off Lenses with Frame," "BOGO All Glasses" and "Make The Most Of Your Insurance!"
- Frames: 2, including one ad touting its 700-plus frames
- Speed or booking: 3, such as "Same Day Appointment Available"
- A specialty: 2, such as "Pediatric Vision Therapy"
- Map-style listings with no headline copy at all: 5
Not one of the 16 named a doctor or quoted a patient in its text. One independent practice's ad showed a doctor's photo. That's the whole field of competition on the thing patients praise most.
Write From Your Own Page First
Good ad copy starts on your landing page, not in a blank headline field. Read the page the ad will send people to and pull out the words and proof points already there: the doctors' names and credentials, years in practice, plans accepted, same-week openings, the specialty services.
Then look at what competitors are running. The Ads Transparency Center is free and public: search a competitor's name or website, choose the region, and browse their current ads. If an advertiser shows nothing, open the menu to see more ads, and check whether their ads run under an agency's or parent company's name. Chapter 7 covered how often eye care ad accounts sit under a holding company.
AI writing tools have a place, and it's at the end. Use one to check spelling, trim a headline to 30 characters or spot a repeated word. Starting there gets you the same generic copy every other practice is running.
Then Borrow Your Patients' Words
Your patients have already written some of your best headlines. From the example market's reviews, these phrases fit within Google's 30-character headline limit exactly as patients wrote them:
- "Doesn't keep you waiting"
- "An education on my eye health"
- "Explains everything so well"
- "Answered all my questions"
- "Didn't push me"
- "Great eye doctors for kids"
- "Same day emergency glasses"
Each speaks to what patients care about: time with the doctor, understanding their eyes, not being sold. "Didn't push me" answers the upselling complaints we saw in 15 reviews in the same sample. "Great eye doctors for kids" speaks straight to parents.
The rule is simple: only run a phrase that's true of your practice. Read your own reviews on Google and wherever else patients rate you, and pull the phrases that come up more than once. Then ask the front desk what callers ask most often. "Do you take my insurance?" and "Can you see me this week?" are headlines in disguise.
Some States Put Rules on the Word "Dr."
Before a doctor's name goes into an ad, check your state's optometry rules. They vary, and some are specific. Illinois, our example market's state, shows what to look for:
- The title needs the profession. When an optometrist's name is used with "Dr." in public announcements, Illinois law requires "optometrist," "optometry" or "Doctor of Optometry" to follow it, in type at least half the size.
- No claims of superiority. Illinois makes it unlawful to use "claims of superior quality of care to entice the public." "Best eye doctor in town" is out. Factual claims, such as years in practice or services offered, are safer.
- Say who performs the exam. Illinois rules require ads for optometric services, including exams advertised with eyewear, to state that all optometric services are performed by a licensed optometrist.
Other states focus elsewhere. California requires price ads to be exact, with no "as low as" or "and up." Texas requires eyewear price ads to say whether the exam is included in the price. These are examples, not a survey of all 50 states; check your own state board's rules, and have counsel review anything unusual. (This isn't legal advice.)
The 30-character limit makes the "Dr." rule easier than it sounds. "Dr. Jane Smith, Optometrist" takes 27 characters. "Dr. Jane Smith, O.D." takes 20.
Carry the Doctor Into the Descriptions and Assets
Headlines are short, and Google shows only a few at a time. Descriptions give the doctor more space: up to four lines, each allowed about three times a headline's length. A few examples of the shape, written for an imaginary practice (swap in your own names and facts):
- "Dr. Jane Smith, Optometrist, caring for local families since 2009. Book your exam online."
- "Thorough exams with time for your questions. Most vision plans accepted. Same-week visits."
- "All optometric services performed by a licensed optometrist. Call or book online today."
The last one is the kind of line a state rule like Illinois's may require, and at 90 characters or fewer it fits as a description on its own.
Ad assets extend the ad without costing a headline. Sitelinks can point to a "Meet Our Doctors" page and a vision plans page. Callouts can carry short facts such as same-week appointments or the vision plans you take. A doctor photo in an image asset, like the one independent practice in our sample used, puts a face where every chain shows a frame.
Give Google the Doctor, the Speed and the Plans to Mix
Google builds each responsive search ad from the pieces you supply, as many as 15 headlines and 4 descriptions, and rotates the combinations to learn what works. Give it variety to work with. A strong eye care set mixes a few kinds of lines:
- The doctor: a named doctor with the right designation, years in practice, a patient phrase about time and care.
- Speed: same-week or same-day availability, Saturday hours, only where true (Chapter 6).
- Coverage: plans accepted, stated plainly (Chapter 14).
- The service: routine exam, contact lens exam, children's exam, matched to the ad group (Chapter 4).
Launch without pinning. Google's own guidance is to use pinning sparingly, because every pin limits the combinations it can test. Pin a headline only when it has proved itself or when a line must appear in every ad, such as a required disclosure. Don't rewrite good copy to please the Ad Strength meter either. That rating measures variety for Google's testing; by Google's account it has no bearing on your auction results.
Asset Reports Show Which Patient Phrase Is Earning Clicks
After a few weeks of traffic, open each ad's asset report. Google shows how each headline and description has performed. Look at which kind of line is carrying the ad: the doctor, the speed or the coverage.
Replace the weakest headline once a month with a new phrase from your reviews or the front desk. Change one line at a time, so you can tell which change made the difference. And judge lines by the bookings they bring, not only the clicks: a headline promising same-day exams can win clicks and still disappoint if the calendar can't deliver, which Chapter 6 warned about. Over a year, that turns a set of guesses into a set of lines your own patients proved.
Next: Settings Google Turns On for You
With the ads written, there's one more step before launch: the campaign settings. Several of Google's defaults work against an optometry practice, including one that can write headlines for you, headlines your state board may not allow. Chapter 9 covers what to switch off and why.
Every chapter is listed on the guide's home page.
Our Google Ads management for eye care practices builds every ad from the practice's own reviews and pages before any AI tool is opened. Writing your own? Start by reading your last 50 reviews and underlining every phrase about the doctor.
